I’m not buying any more Adobe products.

Two years ago I made a pretty sizeable investment to purchase Adobe CS6 Production Premium, which I felt I had to do because Adobe moved to a software rental model. As a personal rule, I don’t rent software, I own it. The CS6 Production Premium suite went on a credit card, because I didn’t have the funds at the time and then it got rolled into another business loan later on.

I recently reformatted my computer and had to install Adobe Illustrator again. Re-installation of the suite’s software is something I have done quite often since I first purchased it. When the installer asked for my serial number I entered it. I got a notice that my serial number had been revoked and to contact Customer Support. Adobe apparently doesn’t actually want people to contact them, because it is extremely difficult to find a phone number to call. I managed to initiate a chat and was transferred three times before the correct representative was able to tell me that I had been a victim of purchasing a counterfeit serial number, and that there was nothing they could do. It would have been fantastic if Adobe could have been able to tell the difference between a genuine and counterfeit serial number before 2 years had transpired. There is absolutely nothing I can do about it now. They asked me if I wanted a letter confirming my software is not genuine…you know, in case I want to pursue legal action. They must be joking if they think I am going to get anything done two years after the fact. Later on in the day I was sent a survey, which I took and it wanted to know why I chose to purchase non-genuine software. Adobe must be totally disconnected. Why would I spend a dime to purchase non-genuine software when I could pirate it for free if I so desired?

As I see it, Adobe lost nothing in the ordeal, aside from paying someone to chat with me for 45 minutes. It was a digital order..no box, no discs. They only “lost” the potential income from me which they didn’t get because of the fraud. I however am out a pretty good chunk of change. Since I am so upset with them for not being able to detect the fraud until two years later and leaving me in a situation where I can’t do anything about it now, I told them that I will not buy another one of their products. It is a lose / lose situation because Adobe can’t figure out how to take care of their customers or license software properly.

Update: I did find some fantastic software (besides GIMP, Krita and Inkscape) to replace Photoshop and Illustrator. Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer are very reasonably priced at the $50 mark and that is to own, not a monthly subscription fee. Both of these programs are amazing and given enough time, I can see Affinity harvesting a lot of Adobe’s customers as well as appealing to new creatives.